


Terrors and Tremors

by pilindiel



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Ficlet, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, POV Marco Bott
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-07
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-10 08:11:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11123235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pilindiel/pseuds/pilindiel
Summary: Ymir said it was fate that brought us together again, a familiarity we both craved from lives long gone.Fate.  Jean hates the word fate.





	Terrors and Tremors

It's three am when Jean wakes me up with a terrified, hiccuping sound in his throat. He sounds like he's choking on something, drowning. The fog of sleep is still there when I grapple for a hold on him in the dark and I slap the mattress a couple times before I finally get a hold on his shoulder, pulling him closer to me.

His heaving, frightened breaths make my stomach coil.

I'm still groggy, barely conscious, but my hands find his face in the dark of our bedroom. I don't know if I'm saying his name or not, I can't focus through the sleep still clinging to me, but something finally wakes him up and Jean's copper eyes are wide, catching the moonlight.

He chokes out my name, braking on the syllables, and that catches my attention. My throat tightens.

Another one of _**those**_ nightmares.

We've had them since we started dating, though mine are much less visceral than his. Less real. Mine are flashes of leather and steel – the grip of something rough in my hands and the whistle of the wind through forest air.

Jean's are not wistful.

His are full of loss and destruction – toppled walls and blood and _**fear**_.

Ymir said it was fate that brought us together again, a familiarity we both craved from lives long gone.

Fate. Jean hates the word _**fate**_.

There's something unnerving about it, he says; a sickening finality that means nothing can be changed, nothing can be altered. Everything has a set path, and no amount of pleading in the middle of the night or crying by a funeral pyre can change that.

I can almost see that fire in Jean's eyes – that distance that we know was once real, that tortures his thoughts and clouds his mind. His eyes are watering, and I don't know if it's from the fear, the relief, or the imaginary smoke burning his lungs.

“I'm here,” I whisper to him, smoothing my thumbs over his cheekbones, “I'm right here.” He shivers as I hold him and I press a kiss to his clammy temple as he tries to hold back his tears.

Jean hates the word, but if fate brought us together again, if _**fate**_ is what made it possible for me to be here when Jean needs me the most, then I'll gladly embrace the idea.

I can't help the selfish lump in my throat as I hold him through his torment – at least fate brought me here, to this moment, to comfort Jean when our past comes back to haunt him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Day 1 for Jeanmarco Month! Sorry it's so short - I'm traveling tomorrow and I'm trying to finish a chapter for a different fic at the moment.
> 
> Let me know what you think and Happy JeanMarco Month everyone!!


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